ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Album Notes

"Not really a blues album but aptly tagged as "Black Americana", Manhattan-via-Austin super side-woman Queen Esther melds roots, pop and R&B in a way Lucinda Williams, Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow never could on their best days." Amplifier

Produced by Queen Esther, "The Other Side" is her latest release – a sprawling sonic wonderland that walks with a soulful twang, full of feeling and drenched in the blues. Ultimately, this is an aural testimony to the music that raised her and continues to inform her deeply held conviction that music shouldn’t be divisive.

"You'll have to set your preconceptions aside for this one. Queen Esther is active in the theater and performance art worlds, sings the blues, sings jazz with the JC Hopkins Biggish Band and now has offered up a great rock & roll album. Is there anything this woman can't do?" - AllMusic

A 2008 Grand Prize winner of the Jazzmobile Vocal Competition and a 2013 Regional Finalist in the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, Queen Esther has performed with guitar icon James “Blood” Ulmer internationally in various blues, rock and jazz configurations, including Blues Experience Raw, The Black Rock Experience and most recently, his seminal harmelodic collective Odyssey. She is a featured vocalist on his much lauded album No Escape From The Blues (included in Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2003) and lends her vocals and songwriting talents to The 52nd Street Blues Project's album Blues & Grass.

Steeped in the gospel music traditions of the Church of God in Christ (C.O.G.I.C.) from a very early age while surrounded by a soundscape of freeform radio, countrypolitan music and show tunes, Queen Esther grew up in the Deep South -- Atlanta GA and Charleston, SC respectively -- as the middle child and the only daughter, with six brothers and a four octave range. She began her gifted education in English and creative writing as a five year old.

Serious operatic training as a kid led to hard time in Austin, Texas -- in musicals with director/performer Boyd Vance as well as on the live music scene with Moving Parts and eventually Ro-Tel and The Hot Tomatoes -- opening for artists as varied as Larry Carlton, The Neville Brothers, Crowded House and Chuck Berry. It was guitarist "Big Al" Gilhausen who introduced her to the legendary blues guitar legend Hubert Sumlin. Because of their strong influence, she lost herself in the blues and found her way back to her country/gospel roots.

Her love of cowpunk, 70's dinosaur rock, black country-gospel music and Broadway musicals eventually converged in her creatively when she relocated to New York City. Her work as a vocalist, lyricist, songwriter, actor/solo performer and playwright/librettist led to creative collaborations in neo-vaudeville, alt-theater, various alt-rock configurations, neo-swing bands, trip hop DJs, spoken word performances, jazz combos, jam bands, various blues configurations, original Off Broadway plays and musicals, experimental music/art noise and performance art. After forming the avant-blues duo Hoosegow with guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Elliot Sharp and releasing the critically acclaimed album Mighty (Homestead), Queen Esther beat out more than 6,000 hopefuls to land the role of The Voice of Heaven in the original cast of the first national tour of the Broadway musical RENT. Queen Esther signed a publishing deal with Bug Music, self-released Talkin' Fishbowl Blues, a critically acclaimed slice of Black Americana, and later released the well-received jazz album What is Love?

Featured at The Kennedy Center earlier this year, Queen Esther and her jazz collective The Hot Five perform regularly in The Salon’s annual New Year’s Eve Eve fete as well as seasonal events produced by Michael Arenella and his Dreamland Orchestra (specializing in jazz from the 1920s) including the biannual fete of the summer, The Jazz Age Lawn Party. Queen Esther wrote and co-starred in The Billie Holiday Project -- a musical based on newly discovered short stories by Zora Neale Hurston, augmented by Ms. Holiday’s rare sides -- at The Apollo Theater’s Music Café in 2012, a project that she continues to develop.

Rooted in her Southern upbringing, infused by her Texas experiences and nurtured within the infamous venues of New York City and beyond, Queen Esther is poised to bring a new sound to the world.